We’re winding down our Black History Month conversations with Dr. Newell Bringhurst. In our next conversation, we’ll talk about Walker Lewis, a black elder in Boston, Massachusetts. In fact Wilford Woodruff once described this faithful black elder as “an example to our more whiter brethren.”

Newell: He was based in Lowell, Massachusetts and he was a barber. He also belonged to a black Masonic lodge. There was kind of an interesting Masonic connection there with him. Connell O’Donovan has done a lot more research on him than I have and shown that he had interaction with a number of apostles that were coming through, so he was well known amongst the apostles that were coming through. It was William Smith, the younger brother of Joseph Smith that ordained him an elder.

It’s William Appleby who expresses shock when he comes upon him and he finds out Walker Lewis is an elder in the church and this is after the death of Joseph Smith, and [Appleby] writes back, “Is it right that this man should hold the priesthood? If it is so I have yet to learn it.”

So that’s caused some people to say the ban maybe was in place even earlier but there isn’t other evidence to support that. Maybe it was just because whatever was going through Walker Lewis’s mind. There just weren’t that many blacks in the church. Maybe this was kind of an unusual situation for him.

Ultimately as I say he becomes kind of a well-known figure. They don’t seem to question his priesthood. That kind of supports the argument and is one more indication that there was no ban on black ordination. Even in later church leaders, all the way down into the 20th century when Bennion is doing his study in [19]54, church leaders acknowledged that Walker Lewis had been ordained. That was acknowledged by even J. Reuben Clark. I discuss this in an article that is going to be forthcoming, the ’54 recollections and the church struggling with whether blacks could be ordained and what could be the historical justifications were.

But getting back to Walker Lewis himself, he eventually makes his way out to Utah thinking that maybe he can get his endowments but they deny him so he makes his way back to Boston or to Lowell and resumes his barber practice. There are suggestions that later on, Jane James wants to be sealed to Walker Lewis because she is aware of who Walker Lewis was and that he was indeed a priesthood holder. To bolster the legitimacy of her request for endowments, she says “Can I be sealed to Walker Lewis?” Of course that is denied. That is a poignant story in and of itself.

It’s Black History Month at Gospel Tangents. This is our final conversation with Russell Stevenson and we’ll talk the LDS Church in Africa. Did you know that Nigerians in the 1960s and even in the 1950s I learned have asked for LDS missionaries to come teach the gospel to them. It’s pretty surprising that they did this without any LDS presence in Nigeria. Russell Stevenson will talk more about this in our next conversation.

Russell: Throughout the 1950s, a number of church leaders are getting letters from various Nigerians across the river in Igboland, elsewhere begging for missionaries, asking for some kind of missionary presence. The initial response by David O. McKay and others was some level of skepticism. Maybe they are just looking for an opportunity to make money. They are just looking for white people to give them business, maybe looking for a new source of patronage now that the British influence was beginning to recede. By 1960 it was officially turned over to Nigerians.

In 1960 David O. McKay and the First Presidency, they send Glen Fisher, who has once been a mission president in South Africa to see what’s happening on the ground. Are these potential converts legitimate? Do they in fact want to join the LDS Church, or are they just looking for some kind of business opportunity? Glen Fisher returned with a report that was gushing by saying these people are the real deal. They crave Mormonism. They crave the LDS Church.

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So they go there and they come away with the same conclusion that Glen Fisher had come away with, that these people are the real deal. They are legitimate. They in fact crave Mormonism. In fact Lamar Williams went further. He said, “Ultimately we cannot keep the priesthood from these people.” Essentially it’s only a matter of time.

GT: What year is this?

Russell: This is in 1961.

GT chuckles: ’61. That’s pretty prophetic!

Russell: Yes. I should note too, this isn’t the very first time you have Nigerians communicating this kind of thing to missionaries. We have evidence all the way back to 1950 of a Nigerian reverend approaching missionaries in New York City asking for a missionary presence. This is all throughout the post-war period. I’m only talking about the period in which the activity is most sustained.

Following Elijah Ables’ Canadian mission, he returned for a short time to Nauvoo where he helped Joseph Smith escape from a mob from Missouri. Then he went to Ohio and encountered more Trouble in Cincinnati! Russell Stevenson continues our focus on #BlackHistoryMonth, and discusses some of the race riots and other difficulties Elijah Ables encountered in Ohio.

Russell: In about 1842, or it might have even been the fall of 1841, there had been a massive race riot break out in Cincinnati between local white workers and the African-American community. It was quite violent. Many prominent abolitionists found themselves under fire. Their homes, their offices, their businesses were all targeted for mob attack, and it’s reasonable to suppose that Rees E. Price would have found under attack as well.

So the fact that Elijah could navigate these white spaces, it tells you he had the skill to be in both worlds. And yet, in spite of this ability, in spite of this comfortability with white spaces, we know that in 1843, I speculate due to some of these heightened tensions that had developed due to this race riot, that locally, three apostles: Heber C. Kimball, Lorenzo Snow, and Orson Pratt, they banned Elijah from preaching to people not of African ancestry.

GT: Ok, so approximately what year was that?

Russell: Not approximately, it was 1843.

GT: 1843, so he had some restrictions placed on him.

Russell: Yes. I can’t emphasize enough, though, it was not a priesthood restriction. They had the opportunity. If they wanted to take the priesthood from Elijah at that time, they could have. That was the perfect opportunity to do so. They did not. In the minutes that tell us about this episode, he is explicitly identified as a Seventy and there is no comment made about him losing priesthood, and two years later, there is a newspaper article again referring to Elijah’s workings in that branch where he is also referred to as a Seventy.

Russell also talks about speculation Elijah may have helped with the Underground Railroad to free blacks from slavery!

Russell: Now did that lead to some sort of collaboration in helping with the Underground Railroad? That’s a very interesting speculation. It also goes beyond the evidence. Trust me, I would love to know that Elijah played an active role in assisting with the Underground Railroad. We just don’t know that.